Border Birds, 2022-2024

Photographs of birds crossing borders captured with the help of open cameras and AI.

Project in collaboration with my sister Bieke Depoorter.

This was achieved by creating software that detects birds on footage captured by open surveillance cameras placed at boundary lines. The software used artificial intelligence running on a 24/7 server between the dates of March 10th and April 10th, 2022. The server captured more than 3,474 birds through multiple cameras around the world. Later, a curated selection of 100 Border Birds was made.

50% of the revenue from this project goes to European Network of Migrant Women and Red Cross supporting refugees.

The monitored cameras at the borders of Mexico/United States, Morocco/Spain, Greece/Turkey, and France/England.

I used a Nvidia Jetson Nano to be able to detect birds in images.

You can buy your very own ‘Border Bird’ in my webshop (since 14 Nov. 2022)